Diamond, Suzanne, "Who's Afraid of George and Martha's Parlour" Domestic F(r)ictions and the Stir-Crazy Gaze of Hollywood," in Literature/Film Quarterly (Salisbury), October 1996.

Norman, Barry, "The Last Movie Star?" in Radio Times (London), 26 July 1997.

On TAYLOR: mini-series—

Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story, directed by Kevin Connor, 1995.

* * *

Elizabeth Taylor's star image always has overshadowed her capabilities as a performer. Public and media attention has fallen not on her achievements as an actress, but on the sensational aspects of her private life. Her passage from youth to maturity has been studded with highly publicized marriages and divorces and Lazarus-like recoveries from serious illness, all of which have sustained her reputation as one of the most celebrated products of Hollywood.

Interest in her acting skills has been further diverted by a widespread preoccupation with her appearance. When she was young, her lavender eyes and all-around beauty enthralled audiences and clouded the critical faculties of the press. Decades later, persistent weight problems attracted negative comment from all quarters. Few screen personalities have been so consistently evaluated in terms of physical criteria. Considerations of looks and celebrity aside, however, Taylor emerges as an actress of definite ability whose talents—despite several worthy screen roles in the 1950s and 1960s—have too often been exaggerated or underused.

In the early 1940s, child stars were major revenue earners at the box office. Taylor's uncommon beauty, even at the age of nine, had much to do with her being selected for stardom by MGM, but it was the warmth and freshness of her screen presence which ensured success. The luminous charm that she projected in her earliest films, especially National Velvet, struck a chord with the moviegoing public. Unlike many child actors, she made a smooth transition to adult parts, although the path was strewn with weak scripts and undemanding roles. MGM, to which she was under contract for 18 years, was apt to use her as decoration in frothy comedies or typecast her as a poor little rich girl. She received good notices for Minnelli's Father of the Bride, and provided solid evidence of acting talent in George Stevens's A Place in the Sun. Stevens, who acted as midwife to another memorable Taylor performance in Giant, induced her to display considerable emotional range and an unforgettable sensuality. Most of the films she made in the early 1950s, however, were lacking in distinction.

The years from the mid-1950s to mid-1960s represent the zenith of Taylor's career. During this period she created various portraits of women wrestling with adversity, usually of a psychological nature. As Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, she suffered intense emotional and sexual frustration at the hands of a morose, self-absorbed husband. In Raintree County and Suddenly, Last Summer, both Oscar-nominated performances, the battle was with the imminent threat of mental disintegration. As Katharina in Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew, she was a fury who vigorously warded off the role of obedient wife. In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (for which she won her second Best Actress Oscar, after Butterfield 8), she was a raucous harridan using drink to anaesthetize life's disappointments and verbal aggression to provide the illusion of control.

Taylor has been at her best when playing brash, shrewish women. Few actresses have better demonstrated the power of sarcasm as a weapon against the male ego. After the mid-1960s, however, she seemed increasingly unable to make effective use of her abilities. Even as regal Cleopatra, she drew critical fire for being excessively shrill in voice. For many years, too much faith was placed in her drawing power at the box office, and too little thought given to the selection of appropriate parts. Since she never attempted a transition from leading lady to character actress, the onset of middle age accelerated the decline of her film career.

In response to the dearth of suitable movie roles, she has recently diversified into theater and television. Most of these ventures have done little more than capitalize on her star status. A notable exception was Between Friends, a television movie in which she and Carol Burnett help each other confront the problems of lonely middle-aged existence in a youth-oriented society. Taylor gives a sensitive, multi-dimensional performance, distinguished by its responsiveness to her fellow actors.

Yet public attention to this day remains directed towards Taylor the legend, rather than Taylor the actress. She continues to be the quintessential star, providing a focus for the fantasies of successive generations. In recent years she has experienced more frequent hospitalizations for hip replacement surgery and a brain tumor, yet she also has managed to be at the forefront of the movie industry's campaign to raise awareness of the devastation of AIDS.

—Fiona Valentine, updated by
Audrey E. Kupferberg

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Taylor, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor is one of film's most famous women, having starred in over fifty films and having won two Academy Awards. She also attracted attention because of her eight marriages and her devotion to raising money for research to fight acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS; a virus that destroys the body's ability to fight off infection).

Began acting at nine

Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London, England, on February 27, 1932, to American parents Francis and Sara Taylor. Her father was a successful art dealer who had his own gallery in London. Her mother was an actress who had been successful before marriage under the stage name Sara Sothern. Taylor has an older brother, Howard, who was born two years earlier. In 1939 the family moved to Los Angeles, California, where Taylor was encouraged and coached by her mother to seek work in the motion picture industry. Taylor was signed by Universal in 1941 for $200 a week.

Success and special treatment

In 1942 Taylor signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the biggest and best studio of the time, and landed a part in Lassie Come Home. In 1943 she was cast in National Velvet, the story of a young woman who wins a horse in the lottery and rides it in England's Grand National Steeplechase. Taylor was so determined to play the role that she exercised and dieted for four months. During filming she was thrown from a horse and suffered a broken back, but she forced herself to finish the project. National Velvet became both a critical and commercial success.

Taylor loved her work, the costumes, the makeup, and the attention. Columnist Hedda Hopper, a friend of Taylor's mother, declared that at fifteen Elizabeth was the most beautiful woman in the world. Making films such as Little Women, Father of the Bride, Cynthia, and A Place in the Sun, Taylor began to gain a reputation as a moody actress who demanded special treatment. In May 1950 she married Conrad N. Hilton Jr., whose family owned a chain of hotels, but the union lasted less than a year. After divorcing Hilton, she married British actor Michael Wilding in February 1952. They had two sons.

Between 1952 and 1956 Elizabeth Taylor played in many romantic films that did not demand great acting talent. In 1956 she played opposite James Dean (1931–1955) in Giant, followed by the powerful Raintree County (1957), for which she was nominated (put forward for consideration) for an Academy Award for the first time. In Suddenly Last Summer (1959) she received five hundred thousand dollars (the most ever earned by an actress for eight weeks of work) and another Academy Award nomination.

Movies and marriages

In 1956 Taylor and Wilding separated, and in February 1957 she married producer Mike Todd. Taylor was shaken by James Dean's death and her friend Montgomery Clift's (1920–1966) near-fatal automobile accident, which occurred when the actor was driving home from a party at her house. In March 1958 her husband Mike Todd died in a plane crash. Taylor began trying to ease her grief with pills and alcohol. Her performance in the film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) won her an Academy Award nomination and led to a relationship with singer Eddie Fisher, who had been Mike Todd's best man at their wedding. Soon after his divorce from actress Debbie Reynolds (1932–), who had been Taylor's matron of honor, Taylor and Fisher were married in May 1959.

In 1960 Taylor turned in one of her best performances in Butterfield 8, for which she won an Oscar as Best Actress. A few months later, in 1961, she signed with 20th Century-Fox for $1 million for the film Cleopatra, also starring Richard Burton (1925–1984). The two stars were soon romancing off the set as well as on, leading to criticism from the Vatican, which referred to the two stars as "adult children." Upset and confused over her tangled relationships, Taylor attempted suicide in early 1962. By 1964, however, she and Burton had each divorced their spouses and were married.

Taylor won another Oscar for her performance alongside Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Over a dozen films followed, as did a divorce from Burton. The couple remarried in October 1975 before divorcing for the second and final time in July 1976. In 1978 Taylor married for the seventh time. Her new husband was John Warner, a candidate
for the U.S. Senate in Virginia. According to one biographer, Taylor broke "all the rules for being a good political wife." She had also gained considerable weight, and the press attacked her about it. After Warner was elected, he and Taylor divorced.

Pain and loss

Taylor then moved to Broadway for the first time in a well-received staging of The Little Foxes. She and Richard Burton appeared together in a 1983 production of Private Lives, but critics felt that the dramatic spark between them was no longer there. In 1983 Taylor checked into the Betty Ford Clinic in California
for treatment for her alcohol addiction. The death of Burton in August 1984, however, combined with back pain and general ill health, led to her return to drinking and drugs.

Taylor was also alarmed as a number of her friends, including actor Rock Hudson (1925–1985) and fashion designer Halston, became ill with AIDS. Taylor began to speak out on behalf of AIDS research. In 1985 she became the cofounder and chair of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR). Her "Commitment to Life" benefit of that year was the first major AIDS research fundraiser staged by the Hollywood community.

Taylor returned to the Betty Ford Clinic in 1988, where she met a forty-year old construction worker named Larry Fortensky. Their friendship continued outside the clinic and they married in 1991. In 1993 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored Taylor with a special humanitarian (supporter of human welfare) award for her years with AmFAR. In 1994 Taylor returned to the movies after a fourteen-year absence for a small part in The Flintstones. She then announced her retirement from films. Her marriage to Fortensky ended in 1996.

Later years

In February 1997 Taylor participated in the ABC-TV (American Broadcasting Company-television) special, "Happy Birthday Elizabeth—A Celebration of Life," which marked her sixty-fifth birthday and raised money for AIDS research. The following day she underwent an operation to remove a two-inch tumor from her brain. She also underwent operations on her hip and broke her back in 1998. In the summer of 1999 she fell and suffered a fracture to her spine.

In May 2000 Taylor was dubbed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the female version of a knight. Queen Elizabeth (1926–) presented her with the award for services to the entertainment industry and to charity. That same year she was given the Marian Anderson Award for her efforts on behalf of the AIDS community. She also returned to the hospital briefly after coming down with pneumonia. Taylor is a beautiful, much-beloved woman with a larger-than-life presence, both on and off the screen.

For More Information

Amburn, Ellis. The Most Beautiful Woman in the World: The Obsessions, Passions, and Courage of Elizabeth Taylor.New York: Cliff Street Books, 2000.

Taylor, Elizabeth (Anglo-American film actress)

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

Copyright The Columbia University Press

Elizabeth Taylor, 1932–2011, Anglo-American film actress, b. London. Regarded as one of the world's most beautiful women, Taylor went from child star and typical teenager roles to a series of ladylike roles and finally to playing worldly, sometimes shrewish women. She appeared in more than 50 films, and won Academy Awards for her work in Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Her other films include National Velvet (1944), A Place in the Sun (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Cleopatra (1963), and The Mirror Crack'd (1979). She also had leading roles on Broadway in The Little Foxes (1981) and Private Lives (1983). Taylor was married nine times, twice to Richard Burton, with whom she co-starred in many films. She was active in raising money for AIDS research, and was made a Dame Commander, Order of the British Empire, in 2000.

Taylor, Elizabeth

Taylor, Elizabeth (1932– ) US film actress, b. England. She became a child star in National Velvet (1944). Taylor's early mature roles include A Place in the Sun (1951) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). She won two Academy Awards for best supporting actress: Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Taylor was married eight times, twice to Richard Burton. She was an active campaigner for AIDS charities. Other films include Raintree County (1957), Suddenly Last Summer (1959), and Cleopatra (1963).

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